Nicaraguan Rebel Group Reorganizes

MIAMI — The Indian guerrillas in Nicaragua apparently are trying to reorganize under new leadership that reportedly was elected in an assembly earlier this month near the Honduran border.

Several members of the new directorate held a press conference here Tuesday to announce the change in leadership and reaffirm the battle against the Marxist Sandinista government.

The group claimed to have been elected Sept. 3 by an assembly of delegates representing 123 communities of Miskito, Sumo and Rama Indians and Nicaraguan blacks.

Reportedly ousted are former leaders Brooklyn Rivera and Steadman Fagoth, who commanded a group of rebels in the steamy Atlantic coast lowlands of Nicaragua.

However, The New York Times reported Tuesday that Rivera, still identified as a leader of the group, had recent success raising funds in Europe. Those claiming to be the new directors found the article both amusing and curious.

Rivera and Fagoth, who had been elected leaders at the last assembly in 1979, hadn`t been representing the interests of the indigenous peoples, said Alejo Teofilo, a member of the new six-person political-military directorate.

The Indian and black alliance is the smallest of the three guerrilla groups known as the Contras.

Under Rivera and Fagoth, former classmates who had become enemies, the alliance had split into two feuding factions -- MISURA and MISURASATA -- with several thousand ill-equipped fighters. Like the two other Contra groups, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force and the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance, the Indian groups had fallen on hard times since the U.S. Congress cut off funding.

The new directorate said the rebel group has assumed a new name, KISAN, a Spanish acronym for Unity of the Peoples of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua.